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The tension gets unbearable by Tuesday, when the RHS announces the all-important Best in Show award. In case you're the betting type, Cleve West is 3-1 to win with the Daily Telegraph Garden, with James Wong second favourite at 5/1 - though word has it the long-odds stalker is Sarah Eberle's garden for the Principality of Monaco, currently 14/1.

Also in London, mayor Boris Johnson has been painting the town red this week, giving away 100,000 on Trafalgar Square to encourage city dwellers to grow their own. You couldn't quite escape Chelsea: one lucky winner got a free ticket in the plant pot.

And in case you were thinking deer and rabbits were your worst garden nightmare: how about wallabies? One turned up in a Dorset garden earlier this week, powerful enough to hurdle the next-door-neighbour's fence, though it was eventually caught. The RSPCA says several live wild in Britain: they make good lawnmowers, I'm told, but I wonder who's going to be first draw up a list of wallaby-proof ?ÌýÌý

Elsewhere on the web...
Everyone, but everyone has been talking about possibly the most controversial book ever written about gardening. Anne Wareham owns the four-acre on the Welsh borders and is, via her thought-provoking website , well established as a thorn in the side of the gardening status quo.

Now she's dared to say she hates gardening, finding it boring, repetitive and likening it to 'talked-up housework'. In her book, 'The Bad-Tempered Gardener', she turns her considerable fire on lawn edges, roses, gardening experts and growing vegetables. Among other things.

Now, the obvious question is, if you hate gardening so much, why don't you just stop? Well: she explained all (with Lia Leendertz of The Guardian putting the case for the defence) on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio 4's Woman's Hour earlier this week. And she's provoked some spectacular reactions: passionately defended his love of plants, Jane Perrone called it 'infuriating'Ìýwhile praised Anne's searing honesty. The gardening world hasn't got this hot under the collar since Percy Thrower was sacked.

More peacefully, there's just over a week left to sign up for the new online game from Kew Gardens, known as ''. Exact details are under wraps, but you get to 'grow' plants from different habitats around the world via Twitter – there are Kew-related prizes to be won too.

Out and about...
Well, if you're not doing anything this week, there's a flower show going on somewhere in London, or soÌýI've heard... Tickets sold out a few weeks ago, but ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ coverage of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show has already started and continues all this week. For details of Red Button coverage and to meet the designers visit the website – plus look out for a whole week of posts on this very blog from Chelsea stars Luciano Giubbilei, Nigel Dunnett and Bunny Guinness, among others.

Once you're all Chelsea'd out, take a break at the Batsford Arboretum in Gloucestershire where it's ; the white bracts of their extraordinary 100-year-old handkerchief tree in full bloom must be seen to be believed. Or there's another garden show at in Bedfordshire; you might get a sneak peek at the multi-million pound garden restoration under way there too, before it's officially unveiled in August.

Sally Nex is a garden writer and blogger and part of the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Gardening team.